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This town (this country, and so many others in the Middle East and the West, too) is filled with them. People from somewhere else, a very poor somewhere else, working their tails off six days a week to send cash home to their families. In all but one case - Madelin, who befriended me after frequent trips to the Costa coffee near my hotel where she worked - every one I've encountered has kids back home. Madelin works just as hard of course, and I am sure she sends a ton of money back home to her family.

I have often wondered about this diaspora, particularly when it comes to the Philippines, where there is an entire generation of kids back at home, being raised by grandparents, that get to see their mom or their dad, if they are lucky, once a year.

Ramona Ruiz wrote nicely about this in The National today. I always think about it when I get grumpy about life here; when it's hot or confusing or seems not fair. Usually when I get really stressed in Abu Dhabi, when I am feeling so…

I was watching Mama O last night, which I always do when homesick, and it was an episode about recession cooking. A topic that bored me six weeks ago, by the way, yet still I watched on. Anyhoo, one of the celeb chefs from one of the food networks – she had three or four of them on near the end – was making pulled pork, and MBC 4 had cut out the word "pork". Almost every time, which I found about as strange as the fact all of them, including Oprah, were sipping big, full glasses of pinot noir.

My dad was visiting a couple of weeks ago and we took a ridiculous double-decker bus tour of Dubai. It was helpful in a way, because before I'd gone on it I couldn't wrap my head around the city.

But then again, who needs to whip down a highway on the top of a bus, hearing about malls and construction sites and multi-use facilities, taking in cranes and traffic and a variety of hotels? Only in Dubai.

Burj al Arab

Burj Dubai (it will, briefly, be the world's tallest tower)

The unappealing German tourist on our bus who insisted on lifting up his shirt like this

Jumeirah Mosque

Ras al Khoor port

Ski Dubai inside the Mall of the Emirates

One of the homes on the Palm, one of those islands they created in the sea

I know you are older. I am sure you've been working out a lot longer than I have. But unless you have the body of Brad Pitt in Fight Club, a sense of humour like Stephen Colbert and the penetrating blue eyes of my first boyfriend, then find something else to talk to me about.

"The water in this cooler is really cold" or "nice weather". It really doesn't matter. I like talking to people. I didn't even really mind stopping my workout to indulge you on your second approach, hearing about your "resentment" over your separation from your wife and how management at gyms you've belonged to in the past have asked you to stop talking to members about their form because "you were making all the trainers look bad". The bottom line is, I have shelled out loads on personal trainers; I read fitness magazines and watch The Biggest Loser (sometimes). Me, and others like me, are going to find a man like you, doing this, condescending, and I am su…

Colin Randall, the paper's executive editor, has just left The National building for good. He is going back to France, effectively retiring, and as he made his final rounds some of the other former Telegraph editors starting slowly pounding their desks with one hand. Soon everyone had joined in, sort of like the lone person clapping in the cliche moving endings, only better.

Colin is a lovely man, even if he does devote entire columns to punctuation and say things like "I thought it was rather inelegant, the way you included his age in the lede" (he was the paper's style guru, after all). And it was quite stirring as he made his way around the room in the growing din, finally walking out in a chorus of whoops and hollers.

Apparently this is a British thing, when you retire. And since everyone is still supposed to be working, they hit the desk with just one hand.

Two bloggers over at Gulf News are attempting to Wipe out Waste in their lives. Jaye, the male half of the duo and definitely the more hardcore, has been making his own shampoo and stopped using deodorant and soap, rinsing himself daily with the finest of desalinated water. He also takes a weekly dip in the sea, although I am not sure what this has to do with it. I heard this whole "once you start wearing deodorant you need it but you really don't if only you'd stop wearing it" argument, and it's usually been made to me by decidely non-smelly people who don't wear deoderant.

All I am saying is, as we head into summer, is the UAE really the right place for this experiment?

A few months ago I wrote about the sauna suits I spotted on sale in Al Falah Plaza, asking "Why wouldn't you wear this to work out?"

One of my bestest friends from home asked me to send him one, and it took me awhile but I finally did it. This is what I got in return. JP, in his driveway back in Ottawa, mocking the package photo as only he could.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I forgot to mention that JP says it fits "like a space glove".

I've now only seen the top of Oman, the part that is surrounded by the UAE, called Musadam, which is a big rocky fiord overlooking brilliant Arabian Sea. We took a day trip on one of the traditional fishing boats: I highly recommend it. Basically, there is nothing up there. The perfect antidote to the non-stop development down below.

I had to go to the Canadian embassy in Abu Dhabi recently to have the Arabic translation of my Canadian driver's license notarised. (We are the only nationality, by the way, required to have this done to get UAE driving permits, all for a cool 200 dirhams). I was sort of excited at this prospect, not having needed the services of my local Canadian embassy before. It all felt very expat-ish, telling people for no reason, "I have to go to the embassy tomorrow" or "I just went to the embassy". So I was fairly unimpressed to learn that it is on the ninth and 10th floor of the office tower beside Abu Dhabi Mall.

I am not sure what I was expecting, but I think in the back of my mind I'd had this image of things really hitting the fan in Abu Dhabi, an invasion, or a coup, perhaps, some sort of terrorism that only targets Canadians, maybe. And if that happened, I sort of felt like I could take refuge at the embassy (you know, dramatically climbing over a big, comfo…

The Indian festival of Holi marks the start of spring and the first harvest of the year, as my colleague Suryatapa Bhattacharya writes today in The National. It's usually celebrated over two days, and kicked off yesterday with people visiting their neighbours and friends, eating sweets and playfully "throwing dry powder and coloured water at each other".

Stores in Dubai have stocked up on the coloured powders, called gulal, which sell for a couple of dirhams and come in red, orange, green, yellow and blue. Apparently people load up water guns and soak each other.

I felt a little for Tushar Kumar, a construction worker who had to tone down his celebration a little due to a killjoy of a landlord in Musaffah:

“We are not allowed to play with colours in our living quarters,” he said.

I forgot all about this gem I found one day a couple of months ago while Googling (I am not sure what I was looking for; perhaps I just punched in: spinsters+fate of=?) Badum-bump. The search turned up an inadvertently hysterical 2007 article in a Dubai tabloid called Xpress, titled Sad Spinsters: Lonely Hearts.

There is lots of typical stuff in there, and some not-so typical, considering this is the UAE: Maryam is 50, resigned to being a spinster; despite her success, she'd rather be married with kids than highly educated and single. Emirati men were marrying non-Emirati women because it's cheaper, apparently. Some women are glad they've ducked bad marriages and are just seeking a good one. A counsellor at Dubai Courts helpfully suggests women opt to become a second wife, acknowledging that comes with its own set of problems.

It was the sidebar that caught my eye though. I include it below for your reading enjoyment, drawing your specific attention to the comparison of an …

I am dangerously close to joining Twitter, just as soon as I can figure out what it is.

(In a related development, the British journalism newsletter Gorkana tells me Sky News has just appointed Ruth Barnett a Twitter Correspondent: "she will now dedicate her time to scouring the Twittersphere for news stories on a daily basis and feeding back relevant stories to the rest of the Sky News team". Ruth’s tweets can be followed at www.twitter.com/RuthBarnett)

An interesting piece about the whole Atwood "banned in Dubai" debacle at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in the Toronto Star. It was hard to get the full story when it happened last month, and reading this, it's no wonder.

The author pulled out of the festival after the British author Geraldine Bedell said her book had been banned and we all thought "UAE censorship". In the end, as it is with most things, it wasn't that simple.

Two British guys talking over pints (for much, much longer than I would have thought two guys would talk over pints on this particular topic) about how one of them has a massive crush on a girl at work.

That is a key hanging in the door of my new staff apartment, the one I got from a friend right before the company threw up their hands at Abu Dhabi's absurd housing shortage and cancelled the program. So I am pretty grateful, I guess. Because otherwise I'd be out of my hotel as of May 1, and facing really gross rents or a commute from Dubai. I am fairly certain I would have chucked the entire UAE experiment if that had been the case, so I guess this means I wasn't meant to quit just yet.

That is a little falcon hood on my keychain, very authentic, don't you know. Gemma, the Filipina lady who works long hours six days a week manning the desk at the Ramee Hotel Apartments, the one who once a week or so gave me a thumbs up on the outfit I was wearing, who told me at Christmas that she was sad, because the people she loves aren't even far away in the Philippines, but (nodding her head to the ceiling) "in heaven", causing me to mist up, the one who asked me for…

One of the very best parts of moving to Abu Dhabi, and working at this newspaper, are meeting so many different personalities from all over the world. One of my favourite is Jonathan Gornall, a former chief sub (that's a copy editor to you Canadians) at The Times and news feature editor here, not to mention part of a foursome that very nearly rowed clear across the Atlantic Ocean in 2004 save for some serious weather. That was his second attempt. Jonathan is one of the very best kind of Brits: he loves to complain, but makes it funny, he has a lightening-speed wit and loads of charisma. He is also quite dashing, and it's no secret that most of the women in the office of a variety of ages have slight crushes on him. He is also a man, and thus his ego is easily bruised. I am just guessing if he read this he would hone in on the word "slight" and walk away a little bit wounded. So, I shall change it to "major". He also has a gorgeous girlfriend, quite a few y…

It was quite something, seeing 15,000 people turn out along Abu Dhabi's Corniche for the Terry Fox Run last Friday. Wait, actually, the Friday before that. I donned some rollerblades for the event, and got a little choked up by the sight of all those Canadian flags. A group of Emiratis volunteered at the event, handing out water and directions along the 8.5km route.

Note: A move to my new staff apartment, the resulting lack of internet access, moving from being an sub to a reporter and a much-anticipated visit from my dad all add up to not very much blogging. But I will be back, for those of you who check here faithfully. Thanks for that, by the way.